Ethiopia’s decision to expand ENDF’s military occupation in Somalia has prompted domestic backlash and political upheaval in Somalia, a panacea for domestic conflict and geopolitical shifts in the fluid Horn & East African region. A Coalition of powerful political parties in Somalia issued a statement on 20th May 2020 condemning the presence of Non-AMISOM Ethiopian Military contingent (ENDF) in Somalia and subsequently linked the presence to the indiscriminate downing of a Kenyan Cargo Plane in Somalia. The coalition warned of meddling, occupation, and subversive activities by the ENDF troops in Central and Southern Somalia region. The contingents mandate is not clear for they aren’t peacekeepers nor part of African Mission to Somalia (AMISOM).
Strategic Intelligence (S.I) rummaged through reports about this event and Ethiopia’s military endless ‘politically-factored’ expeditions in Somalia and found out a bias, “a history of un-strategic military interventions by ENDF in Somalia at the convenience of political stalwarts”. It is commonsense in military intelligence that Military intervention should correspond to the size of the mission, interestingly, the ENDF expedition in Somalia is significantly large in troops and assets yet not mission based; hence un-strategic. Those forces are not backing up their AMISOM contingent or other AMISOM contingents spread in the mission SECTORS.
Utility of ENDF in Somalia, a Military Logic
The debate is about the purpose of ENDF in Somalia ‘as conventional military force’. Is the purpose to defeat another conventional military force or Counter Insurgency (COIN) Ops? Notably, the Somali’s are very skeptical about Ethiopians despite their socio-political symbiosis. Understanding this debate requires understanding that counterinsurgency is not a type of warfare; it is strategy by which a disproportionately powerful conventional force approaches asymmetric warfare. Is ENDF Somalia mission about asymmetric warfare? The purpose of a counterinsurgency is to transform an occupied society in order to undermine the insurgents. As such, a skeptical Somali populace will not support an invasive COIN Ops by ENDF thus rules out COIN Ops as mission objective.
So which “conventional military force/enemy” does ENDF seek to defeat in Jubbaland & Central Somalia? There are three actors in these regions, some convectional the other a terrorist group ( Jubbaland Security Forces (JSF), the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia ‘Haraakat Shabaab Mujahideen, a terrorist group, and AMISOM SECTOR 2 Contingent Kenya Defense Forces (KDF)). JSF & KDF are in Juba and Gedo region fighting the terror group Shabaab al-Mujahideen.
Regional Geopolitics
Perhaps its the regional geopolitics and the Somali domestic-political problems that factored this deployment. ENDF is serving as a deterrence capability for Somali Army and Federal Government of Somalia, FGS. FGS is desperate to have political hegemony in Jubbaland (Gedo & Entire Juba). The leadership in Jubbaland is politically supported by Kenya due to its geographical location (border prefecture whose demographics are similar to Kenya’s border area). FGS today is largely Pro-Ethiopian and has heavily relied on Addis to curve a stature in regional geopolitics where it has been a pawn for a long time. The presence of ENDF in Gedo and outside Middle Juba threatens both JSF & KDF and if FGS long standing conflict with Jubbaland State becomes violent, a dangerous military conflict pitting Kenya and Ethiopia will unceremoniously ensue plunging the region into complex economic & geopolitical chaos.
The downing of the Kenyan Cargo Plane by ENDF is one such incident. Already there are early signs of a cold war between the long-time allies (Kenya and Ethiopia). Intelligence on the shooting down of the plane already confirms the shooting was pre-planned. Summarily, foreign military intervention should be a rare occurrence, and we see this aspect in ENDF presence in Somali. When such events occur, the military intervention should be scaled to the size of the mission but we see a large mechanized force merely posturing for regional geopolitics, and that’s not a mission objective whatsoever.
